max abelson's super groovy music video spectacular

fine videos daily:
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1970s on tues
1980s on wed
1990s on thurs
2000s on fri


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ft. the beatles, aretha franklin, neil young, dr. dre, serge gainsbourg, duke ellington, the kinks, jimi hendrix, pavement, the clash, smog, the smiths, al green, the rolling stones, cat power, dusty springfield, yo la tengo, antony, wilco, elvis, talking heads, elliott smith, r.e.m., ray charles, velvet underground, otis redding, the monochrome set, randy newman, the cure, gillian welch, queen, stevie wonder & more


"mtv makes me want to smoke crack." -beck


see the archives & a random post


"i just happen to be here, and it's okay." -caetano veloso


"sing a simple song but keep the swing strong." -de la soul


"think straight, keep a clean plate." -joanna newsom


"keep a clean nose, watch the plain-clothes." -bob dylan


"keep your feet warm, but keep your clothes on." -harry nilsson


"it took me about three or four weeks to toilet train my cat, nightlife. most of the time is spent moving the box very gradually to the bathroom." -charles mingus


"she had a chihuahua named carlos that had some kind of skin disease and was totally blind." -tom waits


"you can't hold the hand of a rock 'n' roll man." -joni mitchell


"think about something else. was art tatum talented?" - shoot the piano player


"hey there, hey now, well, you can make a pacemaker blink, easy thing, make a man's heart go bibbity bom. -john cale


"i’ve still got things inside me, sad things, happy things, that people don’t know about." -loretta lynn


"to try to maximize the relationship of listening to a record through promotion is like experiencing driving a car by reading about stimulus programs." -bonnie 'prince' billy


"after cheesecake with all of your friends and family, who's gonna front the bill? me... say you want to take first-class trips, well i want to work those first-class hips. yes i do." -r. kelly


"too much cheesecake too soon, old money's better than new" -roxy music


"my mother used to tell me about vibrations. to think that invisible feelings, invisible vibrations existed scared me to death." -brian wilson


"i'm an idiot for you." -iggy pop


"i mean every letter in the words in the sentences of my quotes." -lil' wayne


"lyrics choochoo from my mouth like locomotion." - pato banton


"i'm going to boogie my scruples away." -lowell george


"i drive a rolls-royce, cause it's good for my voice." -t.rex


"i'm dealing in rock and roll. i'm not a bonafide human being." -phil spector


"phil approached me with a bottle of kosher red wine in one hand and a .45 in the other, put his arm around my shoulder and shoved the revolver into my neck and said, 'leonard, i love you.' i said, 'i hope you do, phil.'" -leonard cohen


"they’d whisper at each other and look at phil and whisper at each other. finally this lady, tanked, comes over to phil and says, 'alright, sonny, what’s your problem?' and he said, 'premature ejaculation, what’s yours?'" -tom wolfe


"he's got a mind like a sewer, and a heart like a fridge" -elvis costello


"i bite my nails and if that fails i go get myself stoned, but when i do i think of you and head myself back home." -gram parsons


"i would say groucho marx, to name one thing, and willie mays, and the second movement of the jupiter symphony, and louis armstrong’s recording of potatohead blues, swedish movies, naturally. sentimental education by flaubert, marlon brando, frank sinatra, those incredible apples and pears by cézanne, the crabs at sam wo’s, tracy’s face." -woody allen


"where have you been all my life?" -emmylou harris, to my brother tommy


"he had a huge room with nothing in it except this huge vast hammond organ, right next door to the police." -david bowie


brian eno songs that will make good book titles for my 10-volume memoir, in order: here he comes, baby's on fire, golden hours, brutal ardour, taking tiger mountain, events in dense fog, through hollow lands, some of them are old, everything merges with the night, dead finks don’t talk


ry cooder albums that every man should own: into the purple valley, boomer's story, paradise and lunch


"really, we don't want people twiddling their goatees over our stuff." -radiohead


thelonious monk's middle name: sphere


#1 song on the white album (tie): long long long, happiness is a warm gun


"the only word is love." -john lennon


"i love songs about horses, railroads, land, judgment day, family, hard times, whiskey, courtship, marriage, adultery, separation, murder, war, prison, rambling, damnation, home, salvation, death, pride, humor, piety, rebellion, patriotism, larceny, determination, tragedy, rowdiness, heartbreak and love. and mother. and god." -johnny cash


"i could even find it in my heart to love mike love." -belle & sebastian


"the moon is clear, the sky is bright, i'm happy as the horse's shite." -the pogues


"i hope that you all out there, young, old, tall, short, fat or thin, quick or slow, no matter what kind or color or shape or person you are, if you like to make music, why, go ahead.” -pete seeger


"chuck berry isn't merely the greatest of the rock and rollers, or rather, there's nothing mere about it. say rather that unless we can somehow recycle the concept of the great artist so that it supports chuck berry as well as it does marcel proust, we might as well trash it." -robert christgau


mashable.com says about us: "you can expect the unexpected with this awesome gem. groovy." 33 1/3 says: "it's nice to have someone steer me in a more worthwhile direction." others say: "pulitzer."


download albums, see album covers, photos, posters, quotes & 'staches


the olden days: 2008 j. f. m. a. m. j. j. a. s. o. n. d. 2009 j. f. m. a. m. j. j. a. s. o. n. d. 2010 j. f. m. a. m. j. j. a. s. o. n. d. 2011 j. f. m. a. m. j. j. a. s. o. n. d. 2012 j. f. m. a. m. j. j. a. s. o.


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#981: bob dylan - a hard rain’s a gonna fall (1975, rolling thunder revue)

a very special super groovy spectacular mix: 20 serious storm songs for sandy

(1) james carr’s these ain’t raindrops (2) charlie patton’s devil sent the rain (3) billie holiday’s come rain or come shine (4) ann peebles’ i can’t stand the rain (5) irma thomas’ it’s raining (6) dr. john’s blow wind blow (7) neko case’s fox confessor brings the flood (8) jerry garcia & david grisman’s dreadful wind and rain (9) the temptations’ i wish it would rain (10) the meters’ stormy (11) randy newman’s i think it’s going to rain today (12) tom waits on rain: rain dogs & more than rain & rains on me (13) karen dalton’s little bit of rain (14) r.e.m.’s so. central rain (15) bonnie ‘prince’ billy raining in darling (16) neil young’s see the sky about to rain (17) brian eno’s fullness of wind (18)the velvet underground’s hey mister rain (19) the sensational nightingales’ the storm is passing over (20) bob dylan’s a hard rain’s a gonna fall 

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#925: gal costa - baby (1969)

caetano veloso’s baby is the simplest of all the baby-based love songs, and gal costa’s version beats out the ronettes’ baby, i love you, the beatles’ baby’s in black, the louvin brothers’ my baby’s gone, joanna newsom’s baby birch, lefty frizzell’s my baby’s just like money, roy orbison’s dream baby, the ronettes’ be my baby, bob dylan’s it’s all over now baby blue, and, by just a hair, both aretha franklin’s (sweet sweet baby) since you’ve been gone and baby i love you for history’s best titularly infantile love song, in that exact order.

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#907: bob dylan and his band on dharma & greg, german dub (1999)  

in a recent global poll i was named the third most trustworthy arbiter of german video bootlegs of secret dylan performances filmed for late-90s u.s. sitcoms, so i think you’ll trust me when i say that this is the best one you’ll ever see. bob dylan plays like a maestro with his leopard-print pickguard, plus t. bone burnett’s top button has never looked better. and how they play! especially from 2:08 to 3:08. and everywhere else.

the thing is, no one knows if it’s genuinely that actress on drums—because the playing is actually really good. or maybe bob dylan is so cool that he and german voiceovers can make jenna elfman’s percussion sound great. it’s that, or it’s a c.g.i. jim keltner.

see also! the newly-found a.j. weberman telephone tapes from 1971 on ubuweb

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#895: bob dylan and van morrison - crazy love (1991)

now that seven and a half years have gone by, is it alright to declare that chronicles volume one is one of the best books ever written? “the moon was rising behind the chrysler building, it was late in the day, street lighting coming on, the low rumble of heavy cars inching along in the narrow streets below—sleet tapping against the office window” is the first line of the final chapter. and is there going to be a chronicles volume two and even three or what?

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bob dylan not at his finest in the early 1980s is still better than you at yours
part 5 of 5

bob dylan not at his finest in the early 1980s is still better than you at yours

part 5 of 5

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bob dylan not at his finest in the early 1980s is still better than you at yours
part 4 of 5

bob dylan not at his finest in the early 1980s is still better than you at yours

part 4 of 5

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bob dylan not at his finest in the early 1980s is still better than you at yours
part 3 of 5

bob dylan not at his finest in the early 1980s is still better than you at yours

part 3 of 5

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bob dylan not at his finest in the early 1980s is still better than you at yours
part 2 of 5

bob dylan not at his finest in the early 1980s is still better than you at yours

part 2 of 5

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bob dylan not at his finest in the early 1980s is still better than you at yours
part 1 of 5

bob dylan not at his finest in the early 1980s is still better than you at yours

part 1 of 5

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#812: bob dylan - mr. tambourine man (newport folk festival, 1964)

when my way curly hair grows way too long, like it has now, some people say i look exactly like dylan between another side of and bringing it all back home.

no, no one says that. no one at all—except for this one note my former observer editor, tom acitelli, left me once on a yellow post it that i still have. actually he didn’t really put it that way, but still i’ll say he looks exactly like pete seeger, perfect pete seeger, in his corduroy cords seated stage left at newport.

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the most honorable honorific drug songs, in order:
mr. tambourine man (dylan) ≥ mr. spaceman (byrds) ≥ mr. pharmacist (the fall) ≥ dr. feelgood (love is a serious business) (aretha franklin) ≥ who put the benzadrine in mrs. murphy’s ovaltine? (harry “the hipster” gibson) ≥ dr. robert (beatles) ≥ mr. pharmacist (the other half) ≥ dr. baker (the beta band) ≥ mr. tambourine man (byrds)
see more inequalities here

the most honorable honorific drug songs, in order:

mr. tambourine man (dylan) ≥ mr. spaceman (byrds) ≥ mr. pharmacist (the fall) ≥ dr. feelgood (love is a serious business) (aretha franklin) ≥ who put the benzadrine in mrs. murphy’s ovaltine? (harry “the hipster” gibson) ≥ dr. robert (beatles) ≥ mr. pharmacist (the other half) ≥ dr. baker (the beta band) ≥ mr. tambourine man (byrds)

see more inequalities here

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#801: joni mitchell, mama cass, and mary travers - i shall be released (1969)

whoa.

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#790: nirvana - in bloom (1992)  

in bloom is a better music video than smells like teen spirit, despite what dana carvey and the music television establishment would have you think. and i’d stand on judy mcgrath’s coffee table in my chuck taylors and say that.

all kidding aside, the super groovy music video spectacular and the greater music video community of america would like to thank mtv networks ceo judy mcgrath, who helped found the music video awards. later she did other things with mtv, less wonderful things (punk’d), and today she stepped down—possibly because of a reality program about the girl group the electric barbarellas

but thank you, judy, for the memories.

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#786: bob dylan - with god on our side (1964, bbc)

“in westchester, harry waizer, a survivor, paused nearly a minute before he began to speak when reached by phone. ‘if this means there is one less death in the future, then i’m glad for that,’ said mr. waizer, who was in an elevator riding to work in the north tower when the plane struck the building. he made it down the stairs, but suffered third-degree burns. ‘but I just can’t find it in me to be glad one more person is dead, even if it is osama bin laden.’ asked whether he felt any closure, mr. waizer said, ‘i’ve said for years I didn’t think there would be, but i’ll probably need to think about that more, now that it actually happened.’” - elizabeth a. harris in the the new york times

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this’ll be a good week for listening to old folk songs.
photo from affendaddy

this’ll be a good week for listening to old folk songs.

photo from affendaddy

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